Nowadays,
as the kids from all over the world are connected to the internet, the
possibility of them being used or threatened in a way is high. Sextortion,
sexual exploitation, in which by abusing the power and coercing and threatening
someone by releasing sexual images or information about them is on the rise.
The
majority of the extortion complaints during that were received during 2018 were
mainly part of a sextortion campaign in which victims were receiving the emails
threatening them that their pornographic videos or other in some way
compromising information will be sent to their parents, friends, coworkers or
other contacts in case a victim does not pay a ransom. Mainly, those who abused
the victims thought of shame as being a tremendous weapon that can be used
against victims. However, if the sextortion cases were on the rise during 2018,
throughout this year, extortion by email according to the FBI’s Internet
Crime Complaint Center
rose to 51146 reported crimes.
Mainly,
those who threaten the victims pretend that they have victims’ real passwords,
personalizing the victims’ information, pretending they know every aspect of
victim’s life even better the very victim do, so people might be terrified that
they’ve done something even if that’s not the case.
There
are, of course, the examples of real sextortion, especially involving the theft
of real nude photos or videos. However, hoax sextortion emails have no basis in
reality.
When
the scammers send these emails our as some kind of a form letter, they include
the claims about having the evidence of victim’s affairs, that they have hacked
person’s webcam to take the photos or videos of somehow have the evidence of
pornographic material you’ve viewed.
The
experts advise the people who receive such emails not to take it too seriously
and to stop to think twice. A healthy amount of skepticism can help people to
realize that the scammers most certainly haven’t been recording you nor do they
have any type of this information.
Criminals
usually ask the victims to send unusual sums of money – $514, $607, $618. What
is important for them is to spark enough panic for the victims to start
thinking into giving them what they want. Criminals usually rely on leaked
email addresses that were stolen from huge companies or email providers.
The
only reason why the sextortion works so well is that people, especially young
people nowadays have come to believe that there’s no such thing as privacy
these days. They think that anyone can spy on them at any time, use their
personal information, etc.
The
phenomenon has grown with the use of social media, it certainly can affect
anyone, but experts say that young men are particularly vulnerable. The
majority of the victims are men between 18 and 24, but some of the victims have
been as young as 14. However, there are cases when the victims were in their
50s to 80s. There were cases when even teenage girls were affected – targeted
over Instagram, getting messages. Someone will coerce them that they have been
scouted into a modeling agency and ask them for their photos. It will go on
till the moment that a girl has to send explicit images and that’s when the
case reverts to sextortion.
Nevertheless,
it’s not just the social media that targets the sextortion scammers, those are
also gaming sites. Teenage boys who are trying to advance within a game to get
to a different level, in order to get a high score might be scammed because
that’s the point when someone comes on the scene pretending to be somebody
else, offering cheat codes or in-app purchases to get more armors so that they
can advance in a game. Usually, nobody in a child’s surroundings is aware that
their child is the victim of sextortion. That’s one of the reasons why the
children should be educated that when something that looks like any kind of
extortion happens to them they should at least tell their parents and it will
be further taken into the investigation.
The
boy, 20-year-old, described the way he was threatened: he met a woman online
whom he thought was interested in getting into a relationship with him. They
started making video calls, getting intimate and that’s when he agreed to let
himself be filmed masturbating. In this way, he became the victim of the
international criminal gang who recorded the footage and was playing it back at
him. They have got the names and contact details of his friends and family. He
was persuaded into transferring $150 to an account, but soon they came back for
more. Eventually, the good decision happened – the boy went to the police and
has been given advice on how to help try to catch his blackmailers if they get
back in contact.
There
are ways of protecting oneself in some way. The experts advise that you update
your spam filters for them to catch the latest version of the scam, to change
passwords often or even to use a password manager. Multifactor authentication
that gives a person the option of using other methods for logging in than
passwords can also reduce worries.
People
also should be aware that there are serious risks of getting naked on cameras.
Once the footage is made, it’s gone and it’s out of their hands so nobody knows
what happens next. Think twice before getting naked in front of any kind of webcam.
The
final element is that if you receive an email and it worries you, you should
report it, either to the company’s IT department or to the police, they are
well aware of these scams.
Source:
ABC News,
Lawfare